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Climate
UK scientists to launch outdoor geoengineering experiments
Blocking sunlight could temporarily slow the climate crisis but the technologies remain highly controversial
UK scientists are to launch outdoor geoengineering experiments as part of a £50m government-funded programme.
The experiments will be small-scale and rigorously assessed, according to Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), the UK government agency backing the plan, and will provide “critical” data needed to assess the potential of the technology. The programme, along with another £11m project, will make the UK one of the biggest funders of geoengineering research in the world.
Continue reading...The Mystic Seaport Museum Grapples With Threats from Rising Seas
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Tariffs will raise prices. But the climate crisis is the real inflation risk | Mark Blyth and Nicolò Fraccaroli
As temperatures rise and countries back off their decarbonization efforts, we must confront a reality central banks can’t correct
Inflation is, at base, a tax on consumption – and it hits the poor the hardest, since they consume more of their incomes and the rich consume less.
That’s one reason for concern over Donald Trump’s tariffs, which will disproportionately affect the poor. When the 90-day pause on the tariffs expires, it is reasonable to expect prices to rise, and by a lot.
Mark Blyth is a political economist and professor at Brown University. Nicolò Fraccaroli is a visiting scholar at Brown University
Continue reading...Why Japan Counts 72 Microseasons
On thin ice: the brutal cold of Canada’s Arctic was once a defence, but a warming climate has changed that
Geopolitical tensions are heating up on Canada’s borders, but the biggest threat may be from wildly fluctuating temperatures transforming the tundra and ocean
In early February, during the depths of winter, Twin Otter aircraft belonging to the Canadian military flew over the vast expanse of the western Arctic looking for sea ice. Below, sheets of white extended beyond the horizon.
But the pilots, who were searching for a suitable site to land a 34-tonne (76,000lb) Hercules transport plane a month later, needed ice that was 1.5-metres (5ft) thick.
Continue reading...US to impose tariffs of up to 3,521% on south-east Asia solar panels
Ahead of a global summit in London comes a warning that lessons on energy security have not been learned
US trade officials are preparing to impose tariffs of up to 3,521% on imports of solar panels from four south-east Asian countries, while the International Energy Agency has said lessons from the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had not been fully learned.
The US commerce department has announced the new tariffs, targeting companies in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, after an investigation begun a year ago when American manufacturers of solar panels accused Chinese companies of flooding the market with subsidised, cheap goods.
Continue reading...Most of the world’s population wants stronger climate action. They just don’t realize that they are a majority
The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch a year-long exploration of the ‘silent majority’ of people who want to fight climate change
The Guardian US is launching a year-long collaborative reporting project that seeks to explore a pivotal but little-known fact about the climate crisis: the overwhelming majority of the world’s people want their governments to take stronger action.
The 89 Percent Project is a partnership between the Guardian US, Covering Climate Now, Agence France-Presse and dozens of other newsrooms across the globe. The collaboration builds on a slate of recent scientific studies finding that between 80-89% of the world’s population want stronger climate action. This overwhelming global majority, however, does not realize that they are a majority; most think their fellow citizens don’t agree. Experts agree breaking this “spiral of silence” could be pivotal to spurring critical climate action.
Continue reading...‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realise it?
Researchers find 89% of people around the world want more to be done, but mistakenly assume their peers do not
- Activate climate’s ‘silent majority’ to supercharge action, experts say
- The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89 Percent Project—and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more
How much of a $450 (£339) pot would you give to a charity that cuts carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy, and how much would you keep for yourself? That was the question posed in a recent academic experiment. The answers mattered: real money was handed out as a result to some randomly chosen participants.
The average person gave away about half the money and kept the rest. But what if you had been told beforehand that the vast majority of other people think climate action is really important? Might you have given more to the charity?
Continue reading...Pope Francis hailed as ‘unflinching global champion’ on climate crisis
Officials and campaigners from around world pay tribute to pontiff who put environment at heart of his papacy
He declared destroying the environment a sin, warned that humanity was turning the glorious creation of God into a “polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth”, and located the cause of the climate crisis in people’s “selfish and boundless thirst for power”.
The messages Pope Francis delivered on the climate and environmental crises were forceful and direct. He called the leaders of fossil fuel companies into the Vatican to hold them to account; declared a global climate emergency, in 2019; and in his final months, held a conference on “the economics of the common good”.
Continue reading...Activate climate’s ‘silent majority’ to supercharge action, experts say
Making concerned people aware their views are far from alone could unlock the change so urgently needed
- ‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realise it?
- The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89 Percent Project—and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more
A huge 89% majority of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis but feel they are trapped in a self-fulfilling “spiral of silence” because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority, research suggests.
Making people aware that their pro-climate view is, in fact, by far the majority could unlock a social tipping point and push leaders into the climate action so urgently needed, experts say.
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Australia’s student strikers for climate believed they could change their future. Where are they now?
Young people rode a wave of hope and power when hundreds of thousands protested with them in 2019. Then, momentum was lost
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On a stinking hot November day, seven years ago, Grace Vegesana and a handful of other young climate activists set up a small stage in a large square in Sydney’s CBD – and waited. Inspired by the first school striker for climate, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, the high school students decided to organise their own rally.
Vegesana expected a hundred people to show up. Five thousand came. “It was like, oh my God, we’ve unleashed some kind of beast, people want more,” she recalls. In the months afterwards crowds doubled and then tripled.
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